


Fissure

by Lefaym



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Accidental Incest, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Magical Healing Force Sex, Post-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Pre-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Tatooine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 08:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6147018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lefaym/pseuds/Lefaym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A shadow has hovered behind Luke's eyes ever since Bespin; Leia knows that he lost more than a hand there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fissure

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a gift from my thirty-four year old self to my fifteen year old self (who would have been too scared to write it).
> 
> Many thanks to my wonderful fera_festiva and lionessvalenti for their cheerleading and beta-reading.

Leia squinted at the horizon and tightened her white cowl around her head. She’d come outside in the hope that the air would be less oppressive without walls to contain it, but clearly she’d been wrong. There may have been little moisture in the atmosphere, but there was more than enough dust, and even in the shade of the small dwelling that General Kenobi had called his home in the later years of his life, the heat seemed to pierce her skin.

How had Luke survived without going crazy, growing up here?

At the thought of Luke, Leia again felt a small twinge deep in her gut, a sense that something wasn’t quite right; she’d felt it far too often lately. She thought it might been something he’d done when he reached out to her at Bespin; established some sort of empathy between them. Of course, maybe it was just her mind and body playing tricks. After all, very little _was_ right at the moment.

Leia sighed and went back inside.

Luke was still meditating, in spite of whatever it was that she’d sensed -- or thought she’d sensed -- a few minutes ago. He sat with his legs crossed amongst a scattered collection of old papyrus books and journals. In front of him, resting on a small scrap of bantha hide, were three dull white crystals; Luke’s hands hovered over them.

Taking care not to disturb him, Leia sat at the small table and returned to the holovid missive she’d been drafting on her datapad, but it was difficult to concentrate. She longed to join Lando and Chewbacca in Mos Eisley, where she might be able to do something far more useful to help Han. Writing letters and composing speeches seemed so insignificant in comparison.

In her mind’s eye, Leia saw her father smiling and shaking his head ruefully at her. She’d fought against him so often as a child, when he’d insisted on her learning the diplomatic arts. But he’d been right, of course. So much could be achieved with the right words. The Alliance needed funds, and a holovid to the right person with the right sympathies could be far more effective than military victories, if it meant extra credits, or food and medical supplies. 

Something twisted inside her, and Leia quickly forced herself to fold away her memories of Bail Organa; there was still no time for grief. The trick didn’t work as well as it usually did.

Leia ran her hands over the keys of her datapad and tried to focus, but before she’d formed a single word, Luke gave a frustrated cry and slammed his hands onto the floor.

“Luke?”

Luke opened his eyes and rubbed at his temples. “Lost my focus,” he said. He looked down at the three still-dull crystals in front of him. “I just can’t…” Luke drew a deep breath. “It must be possible, but I don’t know how…”

“You need a break,” said Leia. “You’ve been like that for hours.”

Luke shook his head, but he stood anyway and disappeared into the small waterless ‘fresher at the back of the house.

Leia frowned as she watched him go. She hated not being able to help him with this. He’d told her that it was necessary, that he wouldn’t be able to help Han until he succeeded, but so far as Leia could tell he hadn’t made any headway. She cast her mind back to the letter from General Kenobi that Luke had shown her two nights ago, scouring her memory for any clue that might assist:

_My dear Luke,_

_Many years ago I accompanied your father to the Crystal Caves of Ilum, where the Jedi have traditionally sought the kyber crystals that form the heart of every lightsaber. While he sought his own crystal, I found myself drawn by the Force to a distant corner of the caves, where these three crystals called to me. I knew even as I took them, however, that they were not for me: I was to pass them on to another, who would not have the opportunity to come to this sacred place. I now believe that they were meant for you._

_Be warned, however: kyber crystals are imbued with the Force itself. You must show the crystal your deepest self before it responds to you and becomes truly yours. Let the Force guide you, Luke; it will be with you, always._

_I remain your friend from afar,  
Obi-Wan Kenobi._




The letter, composed on the same rare papyrus as Obi-Wan’s journals and ancient texts, had been marred by a thousand tiny creases, as though Luke had crumpled it in his fist and then flattened it out again many times.

Leia crossed the room to where Luke had been sitting. She knelt down in front of the crystals, looking at each of them in turn. As she studied them, one of them began to seem… richer than the others, more faceted. She reached out toward it with a fingertip and then her whole hand as a warm energy seemed to pull her in.

“What’re you doing?”

Luke’s tone was more curious than accusatory, but Leia pulled back anyway. 

“I wanted to see…” She looked back at the crystals; they all seemed perfectly normal again to her now. She have must been imagining things, she thought.

“No, no, it’s okay,” he said. He sighed. “The way I’m going, you’d probably have better luck with them than me.”

“Don’t talk that way, Luke. You’ll figure it out, I know you will.”

Luke extended his left hand to her, and Leia took it as she stood. He didn’t let go immediately. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

His hand was warm on hers, and not unpleasant in spite of the day’s heat. It wasn’t like the electric heat of Han’s touch, yet it drew her in anyway. She reached up to brush a stray lock of hair from Luke’s forehead and he smiled at her, but it didn’t lift the shadow that had hovered behind his eyes ever since Bespin. He’d lost more than a hand there, Leia felt certain.

That, Leia knew, was the real reason she was still here. Letters and holovid speeches could be composed anywhere, but it didn’t seem right to leave Luke while he felt so incomplete. 

Leia stepped in closer and Luke’s arms encircled her. She let her head rest against his shoulder as she returned the embrace. 

_You must show the crystal your deepest self_. What could that mean for Luke? What would it mean for her, if she were in his place? She felt her throat constrict as the answer came to her, but she forced herself to speak normally.

“Luke,” she said. “I have an idea.”

* * *

They set out early, shortly before Tatoo I rose above the horizon. The battered blue speeder that they’d been using to pick up supplies hummed along well enough as the freezing morning air turned hot, and although Leia kept her blaster ready, they didn’t see any Tusken Raiders as they sped across the Jundland Wastes.

Tatoo II was fully risen by the time a small burnt-out farmstead appeared in front of them. Luke’s face was unreadable as they approached the blackened structures: a small domed building, underground living quarters half-concealed inside an amphitheatre, skeletal evaporators that clearly hadn’t worked for years. 

Luke jumped out of the speeder as soon as they arrived and set off in the direction of a small collection of grave-markers. Leia followed him, and stood beside him as looked down at them, Three were well-made and older, with carved writing obscured by dust, but Luke’s eyes were fixed on the two rough cairns that, she knew, Luke had made himself barely three years past. He’d told her about it once, on Hoth, when she’d helped him back to his bunk after Han had plied him with too much illegally acquired Corellian wine.

Luke didn’t say anything now. He just stared at the cairns, with the same blank expression he’d worn since the homestead came into view. After a few moments though, he reached out and took her hand.

They stood there in the searing sun until he dropped her hand and turned away.

“I need to…” He gestured toward the living-quarters.

Leia nodded. “Of course.” She made no attempt to go with him; she knew that some things needed to be faced alone.

To keep herself busy, Leia began a circuit of the perimeter, careful to keep her head shielded from the heat. From what she could tell, no one had been here for a long time; everything of value had either been burnt or scavenged. She used her macro-binoculars to scan the horizon for any sentient life forms approaching, but if they’d been noticed, it seemed that no one thought they were important enough to investigate.

Her circuit done, Leia took shelter from Tatooine’s suns inside a domed building, which seemed to have been a workshop once. She picked her way through the debris that littered the floor, running her hands over the warped machinery, wondering what it would take to put it back together and make it work again. Again, that feeling of wrongness, of everything being out of place, incomplete.

 _Hours_ , she thought, piecing the timeline together in her head. Hours, certainly no more than one standard day between the destruction of this place and the moment she’d been forced to watch Alderaan blown away into dust. Hours between the end of Luke’s tiny world and her large one. She wanted not to think about it, but it was impossible now to hide the thought away, and there was that jagged twisting in her gut again, because the Empire had stolen everything from them, and then -- 

_Luke needs me_.

The thought entered her head with perfect clarity, and everything else fell away. She didn’t have room for any other thought as she left the workshop and ran toward the living quarters. 

The dwelling was eerily silent when she entered it: no signs of a fight, no indication that Luke was battling sand people who had evaded her search. Leia called for him, but there was no response.

He wasn’t dead, Leia was certain. She thought she might find him unconscious, or bleeding, or incapacitated in some way, but when she did finally find him -- he was standing, alone and utterly still.

He was in the middle of a room that appeared to have escaped the worst of the destruction: it was covered in ash, dust, and sand, and it had clearly been ransacked, but it hadn’t been burned out as most of the other rooms had. It had clearly been a sleeping chamber, once: an alcove had been carved into one end of the room, and it still held a battered ash-stained mattress. Some broken model starships in one corner told her that this room had belonged to Luke.

He was holding a durasheet in one hand, and at first he didn’t seem to see her.

“Luke, what’s wrong?” she asked.

“It’s nothing,” he said. He showed no sign of surprise at her presence.

“I can tell when you’re lying.” That thought, that sense of need from him, still rang through her head.

When Luke didn’t respond, Leia removed her cowl and draped it over the mattress in the alcove. She took Luke by the arm. 

“Here, sit down,” she said. She thought he might resist, but he let her guide him. He lowered himself down, and Leia sat beside him. She could see the durasheet properly now: it held a child’s drawing, two roughly drawn figures with yellow hair inside some sort of -- dwelling? A ship, maybe?

“I can’t believe this survived,” said Luke. “It was underneath all that.” He gestured toward a collapsed shelf.

“What is it?”

“It’s stupid. I must have been nine or so. The school gave us each a durasheet to celebrate some Imperial victory, said we could draw whatever we wanted and have it sealed in so it wouldn’t fade. So I did this.”

“Is this you?” Leia asked, pointing at the smaller figure.

Luke nodded. “The other one… my uncle told me that my father worked on a spice freighter. I used to pretend that he wasn’t dead, that one day he’d come and get me and we’d go away…” 

Something grew tight inside Leia’s chest. “I used to do the same,” she said after a long pause.

“What do you mean?”

“When my parents would make me sit through long boring ceremonies, or when I had to be polite to the insufferable Imperial governors, I used to pretend that my birth parents would come and find me, and they’d take me somewhere exciting where I could actually do something.”

“Your birth parents?”

“I was orphaned in the Clone Wars, just like you. Mother and Father couldn’t conceive, so they took me in.”

“I didn’t know,” said Luke, turning his head to look at her.

“They didn’t try to hide it, but we didn’t speak about it much. I haven’t really thought about it since they…” _Died. Were murdered. Were blown away into nothing._

“I used to wish so badly that I could meet my parents,” said Luke. “Both of them, but my father especially. And then I wanted to even more, after Ben told me…”

 _Of course_ , Leia thought. _I should have realized sooner_. The tightness in her chest began to prickle with a quiet anger. Of course his father’s death would weigh heavily on him now, after confronting… that monster. It was the same reason she’d found it so much harder to ignore the memories of her parents and Alderaan these past few weeks. They’d both lost so much, as had so many others; they might have lost Han too, and it was all driven by that cruel, twisted _thing_ at the heart of the Empire.

“We’ll make him pay,” said Leia quietly. “We’ll make Vader pay for everything he’s done to us.”

Luke froze. He was completely still for a moment, just as he’d been when she’d first found him here. Then he turned away from her and his hand -- the right one, the false one -- came up to his mouth in a fist.

“Don’t,” he said, his voice tight, muffled. “Don’t say that, please.”

“Luke?”

A tremor passed through him and his shoulders shook with -- Rage? Grief? Both, she thought.

“Luke, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” She reached a hand out toward him, and when he didn’t flinch at her touch, she let it rest on his shoulder.

After a moment he turned back to her. “I just -- I wish --”

Leia pulled him in close and he wrapped his arms around her. She could feel his ragged breath against her neck, and she combed a hand through his hair.

Luke’s breathing grew steady, but Leia continued to hold him. Long minutes passed before he pulled away. He opened a small pouch at his belt and withdrew the crystals. All three were still a dull white.

“I don’t think I can do this, Leia,” he said. “I don’t think I can make them work.”

He turned his hand over and let them fall to the floor, where they rolled away beneath the broken model starships.

“I’m sorry,” said Leia. “I shouldn’t have suggested we come here.”

His left hand came up to caress her face. “No,” he said, “it was a good idea. I’m the problem, I can’t stop thinking, I can’t clear my mind ever since…” 

He looked so lost, and Leia knew she had to do something. 

_Let the Force guide you_ , Obi-Wan had written. Leia didn’t know where the Force would guide her, but she knew what her feelings told her to do.

She leaned in and kissed him.

Luke’s breath hitched, and for a moment she thought she’d gotten it wrong, that he might pull away, but then his mouth opened beneath hers and he pressed back against her, his hand curling into her braids. Leia felt a sudden heat rise in her chest as a wave of emotion hit her from without: anger and love; fear and a fierce need to make things right. A small voice inside her said, _Hold back, hold back_ , but something else was saying, _He’s hurting_ and _I’m hurting_ and _We both need this_. 

Leia poured everything she had back into the kiss in turn: her fury, her grief, her fear for Han and for Luke, that things would never be quite right. But then there was everything else too: her joy that she could act, that she could fight, every good thing that everyone she’d lost had brought into her life; the fire that burned inside her for Han, and Luke, Luke, here, now, with his mouth on hers; and there, deep within her was the fierce need to protect him that she’d felt ever since he’d burst into her cell and announced her rescue.

It was the same for him, she knew. Luke, dear, sweet Luke who’d left this place to save her, who’d faced Vader alone for her sake and for Han’s. Luke who shared so much with her, who was breathing her name into her mouth, into her neck, making her skin break into chaya-flesh as his hands slipped beneath her shirt and toward her breasts.

“Here,” she said, guiding him, helping him to remove the garment, so he could be closer to her. Her own hands sought the ties that fastened his clothing, and soon they were pressed skin-to-skin in the warm air as their mouths found each other again. But she needed more, she needed him closer still.

“Leia,” he said, as she pressed him back into the mattress, “Leia, I’ve never…”

She sensed his uncertainty, his doubt that he could please her, and she kissed it away. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s alright.”

She took his hands and showed him where to place them to make her ready for him. He found her rhythm quickly and she pressed her mouth to his neck, his shoulders, his chest.

Leia paused a moment before she took him inside her; their eyes met and Leia felt something so bright and warm at the very centre of her, at the centre of Luke. There was no room for fear or anger anymore; their bodies joined together, and the shining bright core they shared between them pushed everything else away.

* * *

Leia wasn’t quite sure how much time had passed. Luke dozed on her shoulder and she traced aimless patterns on his side. She knew they had to leave, that they needed to return to Obi-Wan’s old house before dark, but she felt peaceful and sated, and for once she had little inclination to move.

Luke’s hand moved sleepily on her thigh, and Leia smiled at the touch. After all urgency had passed, they’d explored each other’s bodies with hands and mouths, slowly and carefully, learning every curve and hollow, every tender stretch of skin. When Luke was ready, they’d made love a second time, slow and gentle and more awkward than before, but sweeter too for all that.

Luke stirred beside her, and Leia propped herself up onto an elbow as he woke. He looked up at her and ran his knuckles across her cheek. 

Something was different now, Leia thought. It wasn’t that the shadows in his eyes had disappeared; they were still there, but they were part of him now, as though he’d accepted them into the empty space that had haunted him since Bespin.

“Leia,” he said, “I don’t think we can do this again.”

“What? No, Luke, don’t say that.”

“You’re in love with Han,” he said gently.

Leia swallowed. “Yes,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you too.”

Luke gave her a small sad smile. “I’ve been reading some of the books that Ben hid for me. Jedi aren’t supposed to… we aren’t supposed to have this.” He ran fingers along the curve of her waist, her hip. “But I’m glad we did, this one time.”

“Twice,” she reminded him.

“Twice,” he agreed.

Leia pressed her forehead to his. “Alright,” she said. She knew he was right, somehow. “Alright.”

She held him a few moments longer before she forced herself to pull away. The heat of his body was replaced with the heat of the air as she leaned out of the alcove to find her discarded clothes.

If she hadn’t leaned over quite so far she might not have seen it.

“Luke,” she said, hardly daring to believe her senses. “Look.”

His eyes followed hers, and she heard his quiet gasp as he saw the faint green glow emanating from beneath the ruined starship models.

Leia moved aside, allowing him to scramble from the bed, and she joined him on the floor as he pushed the old models aside.

“Leia…” he said as he lifted the crystals from the floor and held them in his palm between them. His face broke into a smile brighter than anything she’d seen from him since before Bespin.

“Oh, Luke,” Leia whispered. “You made two of them.” Of the three crystals Luke had brought with him, two now emitted that soft green light.

Slowly, Luke shook his head. “No,” he said, “I didn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

He ran a finger along one of the crystals. “This one is mine,” he said. Then he lifted its twin and pressed it into her hand. “This one is yours, Leia.”

“But… how?” Leia closed her hand around it. The crystal felt warm and… right… in her palm. She felt certain that it was the same one she’d touched the day before. A thought played at the back of her head, and she pushed it away without acknowledging it.

“Perhaps because we were so close…” said Luke.

“Yes,” said Leia. That made sense, she told herself. They had been close, and his power had flowed through both of them…

“It must be,” said Luke, but his words had the ring of a question to them.

“What about this one?” Leia reached out to the third crystal, which was still dull. She gasped when her fingers touched it, and she pulled her hand away as though it had burned her. The crystal was cracked, she realised. It retained its shape, but a fissure ran through its heart; she was sure it had been whole before.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“I was so angry when we started,” said Leia. “You were too. Do you think…”

Luke swallowed, his face troubled. “That could be it.” He frowned. “No one should ever use this one, I think.”

Leia sighed with relief when he reached for his pouch and dropped the cracked crystal inside it. She opened her hand and looked at the whole, glowing crystal in her palm; she could see Luke doing the same with his own.

Their eyes met, and they smiled at the same time. Luke leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead.

“Thank you,” he said.

* * *

They sent the comm to Lando and Chewbacca as they sped back across the Jundland Wastes, and the next morning both their friends arrived at Obi-Wan’s dwelling, with Artoo and Threepio in tow. The droids had gone to assist with one of Lando’s schemes after their first rendezvous here, but they would stay with Luke now, to keep him company while he constructed his new lightsaber and learned other things contained in General Kenobi’s ancient books.

Leia wondered aloud whether Threepio’s presence would really be conducive to the focus he would need, but Luke just gave her a serene smile and said it would be fine. She was glad, in truth, that Luke wouldn’t be completely alone.

They talked with Lando and Chewie throughout the day, and then well into the night, long after the droids had powered down for the evening. It felt good to make plans, to discuss their strategy for retrieving Han from Jabba’s clutches, though there was still so much work to be done. At one point, Leia found herself raging at Han for getting himself into this mess, calling him a space-addled drekkin-catcher. Luke laughed at her, and she knew then that they would be able to do this; that if they got things right, it would all be okay.

When morning arrived again, Leia packed the few belongings she’d brought with her, and made her way out to the rather more impressive speeder that Lando and Chewie had managed to acquire during their time in Mos Eisley.

Luke met her at the door. They embraced.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” she asked him, although she already knew the answer.

“I will. I promise,” he said. He pulled back from her a little, just enough that Leia could see his face. “You do what you need to help Han.”

He was smiling, but there was a hint of regret behind it too, and Leia pulled him close again. His hand found the side-pocket in which she’d placed her crystal, and she could feel the gentle warmth of his own crystal in the pouch at his waist. She knew it was time to leave.

Minutes later, she was sitting behind Chewie and Lando, speeding away from the small house. Leia looked back over her shoulder, and saw Luke raise his hand in farewell before they passed over a crest and he disappeared into the rippled horizon of the Dune Sea.

**Author's Note:**

> [Wookieepedia on Kyber Crystals](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kyber_crystal)


End file.
